Gettin' my craft on.

***I added some how to's for this project below, based on the questions! Hope it helps!

Keep linking to the party here ladies! I may have to take down Mr. Linky in a few days and just put up the links -- the linky is causing major issues with my site. Either way, you'll be able to keep linking up! (Anyone out there happen to be a computer expert by the way? I would lurve you forever.)

Anyhoo, my mind has been absolutely swimming with projects to do around the house lately, so I have had no desire to work on anything crafty. I have about five gifts I need to get done, but nada...nothin'...

I have even driven right past Hobby Lobby about five times in the past few weeks with no urge to walk in. (I know! What is wrong with me?!) My crafting mojo needed a major kick in the pants. For some reason today, Hob Lob was pulling me in...I couldn't resist it:
I have three girlfriends who all had baby girls within a week of each other, so I've been trying to think of personalized gifts to give them all. I had the egg sign above from the dollar store, and today I got paper, ribbon and itty bitty flowers to make an adorable sign for one of the new arrivals.

The paper wasn't big enough to cover the whole plaque, so I just placed the paper diagonally so it would fit over most of it. I spray painted the sides and the corners, then used my spray adhesive to add the paper:
I found a font and color on the computer that worked and printed out baby girl's name:
Getting there...it needed some bling:
I hot glued them on:
Added some chocolate brown ribbon, and voila!:
Caaaauute!! Isn't her name adorable? Colleen, I hope you love it! (Katie and Steph, yours are coming soon!)

I forgot to show you all my latest favorite Goodwill find!! It is FAB. You've probably seen it in some of my recent pics. And it is waaaaaay more than I usually spend there, even on furniture:
It was $24.99 -- I told you it was a lot! I actually saw it, admired it, cackled at the price and said out loud, "There is NO WAY someone is paying that much for this!" and left it there. Then I got home and couldn't get it out of my mind. I got back in the car, sure it would be gone...but it was there. (With a beam of light shining down on it.) I got it. Love it.

Join me later this week -- I'm going to share every. single. little. thing. I know about paint. I know you are waiting with baited breath.

***Here is what I do to get my words to work for each project --
1. In Word, make sure the paper layout is set to Landscape (horizontally) -- go to File, Page Setup, Paper Size to do this.
2. Make sure your margins are as small as possible. Again, go to File, Page Setup, Margins and lower the sides, top and bottom to 0.3 or so.
3. Once you find the font and size, you can change the kerning or leading, or how much you want to stretch the words vertically or horizontally. Go to Format, Font, Character Spacing. To move the letters out or in, go to Spacing, and adjust the pt. size to what you want. To move the lines of words closer or further apart, go to Position, and raise or lower the pts. to where you want them.
4. I only use the fonts I have on Word, but there are a ton of free sites you can search to find more!

I use all of these tools each time I do a project like this! My picture may be misleading, the plaque is only about 16 by 3.5 inches. I hope that helps!

Gifts I don't want to give.

I'll admit I've done this before...found something perfect for a friend and realized by the time I got it home how perfect it was for ME. I feel guilty about it every time I look at that ring I gifted back to myself...

Nah, notsomuch. I love it. I'm sure what I got her instead was great. Can't remember.

Anyway, I'm having this problem again with some gifts I put together over the weekend. I heart them very, very much.

I started the first with this ugly old Goodwill item. It was $1.99 and I saw it's potential. Luverly, isn't it?

Ohhhh, dahhhhling, is that puke green you are painted with? Yes, I think so. I've been a little obsessed with trying to make my own silhouette of my son. I found numerous people online who I thought did them fairly cheap -- $20 to $30 each. Now I realize how that is highway-freakin'-robbery. (Kimba gave a great tutorial on this.)

All you need to do is take a picture of your subject from the side. (This is NOT an easy feat with a two-year old. Try it, I dare you.) Print out said picture, place black paper behind it (I taped it on) and then use an x-acto knife to cut it out. I am in love with the black and white linen scrapbooking paper right now. (ALERT!!! Hobby Lobby has all scrapbooking paper half off right now!!)

I spray painted the frame, touched up the raised parts with my bronzey paint, and I ended up with this...

A-dorable.

I did another one with a .99 frame from Goodwill -- spray painted it black, found a photo mat in the basement, enlarged the side shot a bit, and cut it out again:




I may put my son's name at the bottom with the date or year, but I don't trust my handwriting. Do you love it or what?? You can't beat the price, seriously. They both cost less than $3 bucks!!

So remember this post and this project I teased you with?

I saw this in my Christmas magazine and have been thinking about trying it for at least a month now. I painted the box white, then cut out this pattern they gave in the magazine and sized it to my size.

Traced it, then filled in with red paint on the top and sides. It was pretty darn cute by itself, but I wanted to make it even more precious:

Yet again, say it with me...CAAUUUUUTE!! What a great package for a gift! I have a plant ledge I put candy swirl stuff on, so I may make more and put them up there or I may use it for our annual ornament exchange. Close up it's far from perfect. And after doing one...I may not do more, or I will find an easier way to paint the red (spray paint.) Although it was quite a relaxing project to work on tonight while watching Biggest Loser. :)

There you have it...two easy gifts and a not-so-easy-but-cute package. All cheap!

P.S. There will be no more fall decorating on here till next year...sorry 'bout ya. I had it out in September here and here. Cry, stomp your feet, whine, beg -- no more. THERE ARE ONLY 36 DAYS TILL CHRISTMAS PEOPLE!!

P.P.S. Am I going overboard with the "cauute" thing? Please tell me. I'll stop if you tell me it's annoying. And I'll find an equally annoying word instead.

P.S.P.S.P. Hobby Lobby has SO MUCH half off right now -- even the craft puncher things!! Go I tell you!!

Bedrest Sucks.

Whew. I need a break. It's been a long two years, few months, week, day of election stuff, and although I always enjoy the whole process, let's just say I am quite done with the whole thing. (At least for four more years.) :)

So tonight I worked on a baby gift for my friend Lesley, who I hope at this moment is either in bed with her feet up or on the couch with her feet up. She's on bedrest with her second child, and it sucks, I know. I had to do it for three weeks, in varying degrees.

Especially if it's your first pregnancy, you think, "Awwwwww yeah!! I don't have to work! I can read magazines, surf the net, watch soaps and eat bon bons all day! FABULOUS!!"

Wrong-O. It wears out. Fast. And it's quite easy to get down and overwhelmed.

So I have been thinking about my friend the past few days and wanted to make sure I got her gift done soon. I started with some small hard canvases...

Drilled holes in the sides:

Then wrapped each board with fabric, added the letters and tied it all together with ribbon:

Cute, yes? I am happy with it. I hope it makes you smile Lesley, it's on it's way to you tomorrow. And no, this isn't the only part of the gift. It's cute, but not that cute. (Gotta make sure to include something he can actually USE.)

The best part -- since you live half way across the country, I'll never know if you really put it up!! HAHAHA!! Brilliant!!

P.S. I'll have my first Christmas craft to show you all tomorrow. FUN!!